An excellent novel. Do not let the length (900 pages or so) scare you away. The novel flows by smoothly and you'll be near the end very quickly.
The writing is crisp and evocative. It has an interesting story, with many social commentary themes laden inside (as almost Dickens' novels do).
The only warning I will give is that there are a ton of characters, about 20-25. and all of them matter. You will have consult a character-list online to keep track of them.
A very long, dry, cumbersome read. I\'ve read books that are longer (such as Dicken\'s \"Bleak House\") in terms of word count, but I have read none that felt as long as Middlemarch.
The main problem is the writing style. It\'s hard to get into a groove and begin killing pages because too many passages require re-reading to understand. I once sat down in my living room with this book for 3 hours and barely managed to get past 30 pages (which is nothing in a 900 page novel). There are run-on sentences; verbs being used as nouns; nouns being used as verbs; and sentences without the \"subject-verb-predicate\" composition, etc.
I managed to grind it out and finish Middlemarch (school assignment), but if you do not have to read it then please don\'t. It takes too much time and simply isn\'t worth it. There are other classics out there that are worth your time.
Blanch Jeplos’s book reviews
The writing is crisp and evocative. It has an interesting story, with many social commentary themes laden inside (as almost Dickens' novels do).
The only warning I will give is that there are a ton of characters, about 20-25. and all of them matter. You will have consult a character-list online to keep track of them.
The main problem is the writing style. It\'s hard to get into a groove and begin killing pages because too many passages require re-reading to understand. I once sat down in my living room with this book for 3 hours and barely managed to get past 30 pages (which is nothing in a 900 page novel). There are run-on sentences; verbs being used as nouns; nouns being used as verbs; and sentences without the \"subject-verb-predicate\" composition, etc.
I managed to grind it out and finish Middlemarch (school assignment), but if you do not have to read it then please don\'t. It takes too much time and simply isn\'t worth it. There are other classics out there that are worth your time.